Monstrous Monday

Three more illustrations from the original serialisation in Pearson's Magazine (1903-4) of Food of the Gods by H G Wells. Firstly, we have the giant chicken, followed by some horrible bugs and then the ultimate result of the Food, big babies. Ray Harryhausen was involved in an early proposal to make a film version and made a giant chick for it. The concept was shelved, however, but the monster chick didn't go to waste - it was written into Mysterious Island as a prehistoric carnivorous bird, and appeared in one of the best-remembered scenes from the film, fended off by Joan Greengross of all people.

Monstrous Monday

Noticing volume 16 of Pearson's Magazine was being offered on eBay, I immediately put a bid in for it and then moved on to volume 17, which had been sitting there for a while on a Buy-it-Now-or-Best-Offer job, so asked for a bit off it and got that, too. There were still a few days to go on 16 (I won it last night for £20), so 17 turned up first. After tearing the packaging apart in a frenzy - as I always do when one of these bound volumes arrives in the post - I opened it randomly, and what do I see? This! A bloke being chased by a horde of gigantic rats! Oh god, I love this stuff. Turned out to be an instalment of Food of the Gods by H G Wells. The serialisation begins in vol 16, and ends in 17, so I shall look forward to reading it in its original parts (I seem to remember starting it as a kid of about 12 but giving up on it).

Golden age fantasy fiction

The volume of Pearson's Magazine which I bought recently - Vol 6, July-December 1898 - has proved of interest. A book which helped encourage me to start buying these Victorian/Edwardian illustrated magazines was one Peter Haining's many: A Pictorial History of Horror Stories. It would seem that he owned Volume 6 of Pearson's himself, for the startling image I reproduce here was also reproduced by Haining in his book (click on it to view it bigger). It accompanies a particularly outre scene in a series of short stories about medieval Venice, The Monsignors of the Night by Max Pemberton.

In his book Haining also reproduced the headers from another story series in this volume, The Last of the Borgias, about a vigilante medico who bumps off undesirable people with undetectable poison. This series was written by one of the most interesting of the now forgotten fantasy writers, Fred M White. Aside from this rather surprising series about a murdering anti-hero - and indeed many others - Smith wrote several disaster stories about various dooms that might befall London, a yarn about killer trees in Meso-America [The Purple Terror] and one of my favourites, The Great White Moth.

In this tale - which appeared in Pearson's rival The Strand - adventurers try to make their fortune by securing exquisite and voluminous white feathers that would sell for a fortune to decorate ladies' hats. But, as you can guess from the title, they come not from birds but from monstrous moths. The gigantic insects live in a cave in (I think) darkest Africa, are worshipped (of course) by the locals and the plucky entrepreneurs get into all sorts of scrapes trying to secure a few plumes. I like it particularly because it could not have been written at any other time - the fashion for feathers, extensive parts of the world still unexplored, young men seeking to make their fortunes in exotic locations etc.

I'd LOVE to start reprinting some of this stuff. And one day I will.

An eBay bargain

But why wait till Thursday? It's just occurred to me that one major enthusiasm which I intend to splurge all over this blog and which I didn't mention in the post above is the one I have for Victorian and Edwardian magazines. I have a growing collection which includes 80-odd volumes of The Strand which I bought recently for a big chunk of dosh I couldn't really afford and a number of Pearson's, Wide Worlds and a few Pall Malls.

I was reminded of this because I've just acquired one off eBay for a very reasonable £15 (plus £4.50 p&p). It's Pearson's Magazine Volume 6 and I also just bought vol 13 off Amazon of all places for £17. This means I now have vols 1-13 complete, plus 15 and some 20-somethings. So I'm filling in gaps.

What's fun is that you don't know what you're going to get in them till you've got 'em. Vol 13, for example, turned out to have the first publication of one of Kipling's most famous short stories 'How The Leopard Changed Its Spots' and a few parts of a daft series involving a well brought-up young palmist/clairvoyant lady who ends up solving crimes with her miraculous powers. I love this sort of stuff and intend to start repupblishing some of it if I can get the money together.

I'll let you know what goodies I find in Vol VI when I get back from London (no doubt the postman will dump it in the space above the leccy meter like he does with all my parcels whether I'm in or out). I'm particularly pleased with this one since it's in the original binding and appears to be in especially nice condition. I've attached the eBayer's photo of it. Pearson's has the most handsome off all the Victorian magazine bindings, a beautiful art nouveau affair. Unfortunately, the seller's flash has bleached the colours but you get the idea.